Today we start looking at an air pistol that’s uncommon in the U.S., and indeed, around the world — the FLZ Luftpistole version 2. FLZ stands for Fritz Langenhan of Zella Mehlis, Germany. We have looked at one other FLZ airgun on this blog in the past — the Millita that now resides in RidgeRunner’s Home For Wayward Airguns.

Uncommon

I don’t think the FLZ air pistol is rare, but the first version that has a rounded grip was made from 1926/7 to 1940, according to The Encyclopedia of Spring Air Pistols, by John Griffiths. Version 2 that I have was introduced in 1937 and lasted until 1940. The nation of Germany was preparing for war in the late 1930s, and commercial production was curtailed, so I think the second version of the gun must be less common. That doesn’t make it more valuable — just harder to find.

Wind Indicators

There are a number of forces that affect the free flight of a pellet. Forces like drag and gravity are easily compensated for by adjusting the rifle’s sights to agree with the point of impact. Compensating for the wind is not as easy. Because it is so variable in direction, strength and consistency, it is a force that plays havoc with our shooting unless we are constantly aware of it.

The 2400KT CO2 Air Rifle that I modded for this report is only available directly from the Crosman Custom Shop. It is shown here disassembled with a mix of stock and modded parts. For scale, the background grid on all photos is one inch square.

Today is a big day. I cleaned the Tune in a Tube (TIAT) grease out of the Beeman P1 we are testing and lubricated it with plain white lithium grease. This will tell us whether TIAT is wrong for an air pistol like the P1 and also whether the pistol I’m testing is still in good shape.

Disassembly

I had the pistol apart and ready to clean in 15 minutes. The directions I gave you in Part 4 work perfectly. I’m not showing any pictures of that today because Part 4 nailed it.

Cleaning

I will say this, TIAT is very sticky stuff! It took longer to clean than I anticipated. Everything had to be wiped dry. That stuff really clings! All I did was wipe it all away with paper towels so the gun was dry and ready for the new grease.

It seems like you readers are hot for more information on tuning valves and adjusting power on precharged pneumatics (PCP). Very well. In response to something RidgeRunner said yesterday, I will do Part 2 of this report today.

Mac’s gun

It began many years ago with my friend, Earl MacDonald — Mac. He was of the opinion, shared by many airgunners, that a high-velocity .177 caliber pellet will be most accurate at long range because it will drop less over distance. So, he wanted the mostest-fastest .177 ever made. He talked to AirForce, where I worked at the time, and convinced them to let me build him a super-fast .177 Talon from blemished parts. In those days production was smaller than today and we didn’t have as many blemished parts around. Still I managed to find the parts I needed to assemble the gun.

Today we look at the velocity of the new/old Beeman P1 pistol I tuned for you. If you recall, I wanted to get a few shots on the powerplant first because the pistol acted like it had just been tuned. I got 40+ shots in the accuracy test in Part 6, and, while that isn’t a real break-in, it’s at least a start. Let’s get right to it because I have other things to talk about.

The test

I decided to test the pistol with the same three pellets I used in the first velocity test. That was reported in Part 2. That will give us a direct before/after comparison. I also added the Crosman Premier 7.9-grain pellets that showed so much potential in the last accuracy test. They weren’t in the first velocity test. I’m not testing RWS Superdomes, but you should get a sense of where they fit in when you see what the other pellets did. This is a test of the tuned powerplant — not a test of each and every pellet.

Today we look at the velocity of the HW 55SF target rifle I tuned back in November. If you read Part 4 you’ll see that I just applied Tune in a Tube grease (TIAT) to the mainspring and got great results. Some readers ask me to use TIAT over and over again on different airguns, apparently not convinced that it works as well as it does. But when they break down and try it, they see for themselves. This stuff really works!

Rob velocity?

But what does it do to the velocity? This is a low-powered spring rifle and we know that thick grease can rob velocity. We have the baseline velocity data I gathered in Part 2 to compare to, so today I will re-test the rifle with the same pellets. Let’s get right to it.